1. Comparative Constructions1 ENGT 116
Fall 2017

2. Vowels: 1. a speech sound made with the vocal tract open is a vowel.
2. A letter, such as a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y in the English alphabet, that represents a vowel.
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound.

3. In the English alphabet, there are 5 vowels: A, E, I, O, U
In the English alphabet, there are 5 vowels: A, E, I, O, U. But there are many more vowel sounds in the English language. The number of vowels in English is uncertain, because there are different varieties of English.
Examples of vowels:
I i /ɪ/ /aɪ/ "twin" / "twine"
O o /ɒ/ /oʊ/ "not" / "note"
U u /ʌ/ /juː/ "cub" / "cube"

4. Vowels in Arabic There are 6 vowels - 3 short and 3 long - and 2 diphthongs in Arabic.

5. Long Vowels
The three long vowel sounds in Arabic are represented by the following three letters.
1. 'Alif حرف الألف
2. Waw - حرف الواو
3. Ya' - حرف الياء

6. Short Vowels
The three short vowel sounds in Arabic are represented using the following symbols either above or below the letters.
1. Fatha الفتحة - indicated by a small diagonal stroke above the consonant.  This is the neutral a vowel sound, such as in the words, nun and woman.
2. Kasra الكسرة - indicated by a small diagonal stroke below the consonant. Similar to the sound in the middle of the word did.

7. Short Vowels
3. Damma الضمّة - written like a miniature واو above the letter. It's pronounced like the u in bull.
→ Sukun سكون - indicated by a small circle above the letter. It is used to signify the absence of a vowel, for example, بنْت and كنْ.

8. Diphthongs
A diphthong is a combination of two vowel sounds occurring next to each other within the same syllable. The two diphthongs in Arabic are the two sounds:
1. ay as in the word بيت
2. aw as in the word يوم
حروف اللين: هما الواو والياء الساكنان المفتوح ما قبلهما مثل:"خوف"و "بيت”

9. Nunation
Nunation التنوين is found at the end of nouns and adjectives when they are indefinite.
It is indicated using a doubled vowel sign. With the sounds un (double damma), in (double kasra), or an (double fatha).
When the fatha is doubled, the letter 'alif is added except when the word ends in a ta' marboota.

10. Stress - The Syllable
A syllable is a unit of sound containing either a vowel sound alone e.g. eye, you; or a vowel sound with one or more consonants e.g. not, stop.
Examples of two-syllable words: seven, water.
Stress: when a word has more than one syllable, one of them is spoken with special force, called stress. A spoken word is recognized not only by its pronunciation but also by its stress pattern. If the pronunciation of a word is correct, but the stress is wrong then the word may not be understood e.g.
Record(n): BrE /ˈrekɔːd/ ; NAmE /ˈrekərd/
Record(v): BrE /rɪˈkɔːd/ ; NAmE /rɪˈkɔːrd/ 

11. Stress - The Syllable
The Arabic language is a language of syllable length, not stress. While reading Arabic all syllables should be given their full length, but no effort should be made to emphasize any syllable at the expense of the other. The result will sound as if some syllables are stronger than others, but this is because of their length.
In Arabic, there are long and short syllables. The long syllable is the one that contains a long vowel preceded by a matching short vowel (المد). The short syllable, on the other hand, contains a short vowel or a diphthong.

12. Examples:
كَتَبَ has three short syllables
كاتب has a long syllable (كَا) and a short syllable (تب)
مكتبات has a long syllable (بات) and two short syllables (مَك) and (ت)
أوراق has a short syllable (أو) and a long syllable (راق)
تكبير has a long syllable (بير)and a short syllable (تك)
فضة has two short syllables (ف) and (ضة)
بيت has one short syllable
خوف has one short syllable

13. Abbreviations
As in the English language, some abbreviations are used in the Arabic language, such as الخ.

14. The Alphabet as Numbers
The letters of the Arabic alphabet are sometimes used for numbering. The order followed is found in the following line:
ابجد هوز حطي كلمن سعفص قُرِشَت ثَخِذ ضَظِغ

15. Homework
Indicate how many long syllables and short syllables are in each of the following words:
أشجار
قلم
لوم
قمّة